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Puma Opens First Sustainable Store

by Maria Cristina Pavarini — August 30, 2012

Puma has just opened its first sustainable store in Bangalore, India. The store’s lower levels will house retail operations while a “Puma Social Club” cafe and bar will open on the upper floor and terrace by the end of this year. The 800 sqm space, located in the Indiranagar suburb, was locally sourced and developed and incorporates a number of innovative design elements to ensure major energy savings as well as environmentally friendly practices.

“In keeping with our mission to become the most desirable and sustainable sports lifestyle company in the world, Puma is happy to take this pioneering step forward for the retail industry,” said Franz Koch, Puma’s CEO. “Establishing a sustainable Puma Store underlines our commitment to reducing CO2 emissions, energy, water and waste in our offices, stores, warehouses and direct supplier factories by 2015.”

“The building incorporates a host of innovative sustainability features to make our sustainable Puma Store a one-of-a-kind retail experience,” explained Rajiv Mehta, Managing Director of Puma South Asia. The store's structure is made with recycled steel from old DVD players, bicycles and tiffin boxes and the building was designed in a way that provides 90% of interior spaces with direct access to natural daylight (the store is 100% solar powered), limiting the need for artificial sources. The highly insulated shell allows for cooling without air conditioning (the ground will be used as a heat sink for cooling in the summer and as a heat source for heating in the winter) while the roof garden keeps the building insulated from the sun’s direct heat and the plants keep temperatures lower at all times.

recently opened Puma store in Bangalore

Furthermore, the porotherm blocks used to construct the shell of the building were made using silt from the lakes of Kunigal. These lakes are the only sources of water for villages in Kunigal and as such are desilted every year to increase the water table. The silt usually ends up as waste, but has now been used as a valuable resource in constructing Puma’s new location. Furniture and fixtures, moreover, were made using recycled wood while low volatile organic compound paint was used to paint the store's walls.

The store will retail a range of products made from organic cotton as well as Puma's Wilderness Collection, primarily sourced and produced in Africa using sustainable materials. For the first time in India, the sustainable Puma Store also introduces Puma's global “Bring Me Back” Program, an in-store recycling initiative for footwear, apparel and soft accessories. The launch event on August 23 was carbon-neutral; guests and customers produced all of the energy consumed during the party through pedal power. This is a novel initiative whereby people pedal on a special bicycle generator that feeds into the main power source that makes it possible to create and store power in a battery bank, thereby eliminating reliance on traditional power sources.

To generate awareness and appreciation for sustainability amongst the citizens of Bangalore, Puma has embarked on an ambitious initiative involving the art and design community. The brand has partnered with Trapeze Design Studio as well as young installation artists from the city to create large-format installations using waste material. These will then be put up in key locations around Bangalore later in August as a strong message to highlight the glaring need to reduce, resuse and recycle. The aesthetic and utilitarian installations will be donated to the Bangalore Municipality and remain as permanent artworks, beautifying the cityscape.